‘We were a village before a Pi’: CEO Eben Upton on 5 years of Raspberry Pi

Eben Upton, owner and CEO of a Raspberry Pi Foundation, is perplexing to illustrate how outrageous a Raspberry Pi materialisation has become: “In 2011 we had a spreadsheet that told me where any singular Raspberry Pi antecedent was (there were 50). Fast brazen to 2017, we’ve sole scarcely 15 million units and we’ve a masculine in Japan regulating one to arrange cucumbers!”

He is referring to his favourite plan in that a Japanese masculine has used a Raspberry Pi to specify cucumbers on his parent’s farm.

This year outlines a fifth anniversary of a strange Raspberry Pi launch, and a cucumber version provides an engaging denote of how distant a Foundation and a product (a credit label sized microcomputer designed to enthuse a subsequent era of coders) has come.

What started as a recruitment expostulate for a Computer Science dialect during Cambridge University fast became a transformation that has helped a universe tumble in adore with a subject.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation was innate out of a problem. In a midst 2000s Eben was a Director of Studies in Computer Science during St John’s College Cambridge and, in his possess words, “the series of people requesting to investigate here had collapsed”.

“We need to make a Raspberry Pi a small bit easier to use.”

Eben Upton

In a 1980s Cambridge’s march captivated 600 field annually though by a early 2000s that series was down to 200 and that dump assured many that a shrinking seductiveness contingency be addressed. The Foundation also had concerns about a profession’s masculine dominated inlet (“our attention has a farrago problem”) and recognized moving kids with a fun product for all competence go some approach in rectifying a gender divide.

These concerns resulted in a 2009 arrangement of a Raspberry Pi Foundation whose aim was “to rise and marketplace a $25 microcomputer for education” and in 2012 that microcomputer, a Raspberry Pi 1 Model B, went on sale (‘Raspberry’ to follow in tradition of fruit named computers, and ‘Pi’ since it promotes a programming denunciation Python).

500,000 units a month

Before launch a Foundation “had a really prejudiced perspective of what success competence be, we were usually meddlesome in removing a few some-more applications to Cambridge”. But when a 29th Feb 2012 arrived (launch day) and online retailers regularly crashed underneath a weight of orders it became transparent a Foundation was onto something. The total are stunning. A million units sole in a initial year, in a good month a bureau (Sony’s Pencoed trickery in South Wales) churns out 500,000 of a favourite product (the Pi 3) and there’s a good possibility they’ll change 6 million units in 2017 alone.

So since a success? Eben puts it down to giving kids control: “when you’re a immature chairman we don’t have an huge volume of power”. But give a child Lego, Minecraft or a one of a 6 Raspberry Pi models on sale (the many costly of that is usually £32.98/AUD $67.95/USD $35) and a artistic possibilities infer irresistible.

The village of dedicated hobbyists and enthusiasts has also been essential to a success, and Eben points out that “we’ve been a village a lot longer than we’ve been a product company”. In 2011 growth of a initial Raspberry Pi was promote opposite a company’s website and amicable media channels, and a following fast grew.

Astro Pi

Since afterwards a village has been wowing a internet with their joining to producing projects that embody all from an synthetic pancreas to a barb complement that shoots froth darts during underperforming colleagues. Two Raspberry Pi (called Astro Pi) even spent some time on a International Space Station with Major Tim Peake in 2016.

If a community, a Foundation’s lifeblood, is a success it is since it’s delicately moderated and curated online. It is “a village where there are no foolish questions”. As a outcome there is a enlightenment of training that encourages inclusion, and this has helped a village boom.

“So far, 40% of kids concerned are girls.”

Eben Upton

Perhaps many pleasingly for a Foundation (and a other institutions concerned in a mechanism scholarship reconstruction in Cambridge’s ‘Silicon Fen’) applications to investigate a theme have recovered significantly, and now a university receives around 800 applications any year to learn during a faculty.

Accolades have assimilated a stella sales, and in Jun 2017 a Foundation was awarded Britain’s tip engineering prize, a Royal Academy of Engineering MacRobert Award, and a Raspberry Pi overtook a Commodore 64 in sales to turn Britain’s best offered computer. The Amstrad Emailer, this is not.

Making it simpler

So what of a future? In a prolonged tenure a Foundation will concentration on some-more hardware, though a Pi 3 (launched in 2016) is expected to be a 3 year product and so a association is now focusing on a program side of things, with Eben saying that “to grasp a goal for everybody we need to make it (the Raspberry Pi) a small bit easier to use”.

Things should be done easier by a giveaway work of a Foundation itself. This has countless organisations focused on removing Raspberry Pi into a hands of a subsequent generation, and training them how to use it.

Among a Foundation’s successes has been a giveaway repository for teachers called ‘HelloWorld’ and a ‘Picademy’, that teaches educators to make a best of Raspberry Pi in class.

Perhaps a many successful bit of business has been to boost a strech of a Raspberry Pi by merging a Foundation with Code Club and CoderDojo, dual of a “premier ubiquitous bar brands” that deliver children to coding.

Code Club has recently extended a age difficulty to 13 so that delegate schools can take part, and so distant 40% of kids concerned are girls. In a prolonged tenure a Foundation is penetrating to move a products, and eventually full giveaway programs, to a building world.

It has been a bustling 5 years for a Foundation, a Raspberry Pi and Eben. When we ask what he’d like a microcomputer’s bequest to be, he says that in 30 years if usually “one chairman will demeanour behind on Raspberry Pi with a same affinity that we demeanour behind on my BBC Micro” he will be a happy man. Given his sales total we wouldn’t contend he has most to worry about. Happy Birthday Raspberry Pi.

Our tip 5 Raspberry Pi projects

From a high to a ridiculous, a tip 5 Raspberry Pi projects…

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Retaliation.py

The jokers during developer PaperCut have combined a Raspberry Pi powered nerf gun that automatically fires during any worker who breaks a formula they’re writing.